We are right in the middle of summer seminar season. Some students are attending only one seminar, and others are completing a rigorous circuit of seminars sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies, the Independent Institute, the Cato Institute, the Mises Institute, the Foundation for Economic Education, the American Institute for Economic Research, and/or other organizations interested in building on the intellectual foundations of a free society. If you have been to one (or two, or three) of these seminars, how should you follow up and make the most of what you have learned?
If you have attended one of these seminars, you have met a lot of interesting people and been exposed to a lot of very interesting ideas. Perhaps you have taken a lot of very interesting notes. Rather than banish those notes to a hard-to-reach bookshelf or to the bottom of your sock drawer, I would like to encourage you to take those ideas, make them your own, and share them with others. Contribute to The Great Conversation. Start writing.
Trying to teach something to someone else is a great way to master it. I would recommend the following course of action. Begin with the most provocative or interesting idea you have encountered at one of the seminars, and write an article or a letter to the editor about it. Make sure it is no longer than 750 words. Why such brevity? First, brevity is the soul of wit. Second, being able to express complex ideas clearly and concisely takes a lot of practice and can never be learned perfectly. Winding, unstructured, incendiary rants can be fun, but they contribute little to The Conversation and perhaps even cause it to regress. Send the article to your campus newspaper, a local independent weekly newspaper, or another outlet. Let your ideas to raise the level of discourse.
You can develop your ideas (and strengthen your social network) by sharing your drafts with the people you meet at these seminars. Even if you don’t care about advancing the ideas you love, you should also write regularly because it is excellent practice for your professional life. I’ve been writing for a long time, but I haven’t written as frequently and regularly as I should have. Also, it has taken a very long time to develop anything resembling proficiency. Nevertheless, some of my favorite wisdom on the subject comes from a chapter title in D.N. McCloskey’s short volume Economical Writing: “fluency can be achieved through grit.” Or, as 1986 Nobel Laureate James Buchanan once said it a little more bluntly and a little less poetically, “keep your a** in the chair.”
There is value in writing that goes beyond personal development. If I remember correctly, Milton Friedman once said that he didn’t expect his endeavors as a public intellectual to change the world right off the bat. Still, he continued writing in order to keep the ideas intellectually viable in the public eye.
One fear — indeed, a fear I had for a long time — is that writing for general audiences would signal that one is not a “serious scholar” or “serious student.” It may be true that popular writing is a substitute for academic writing for some people, but I have been blessed in that I have found public scholarship to be a complement to rather than a substitute for research. Murray Rothbard and Walter Block are among the best examples of scholars who have blended their contributions to public debate with rigorous and active scholarly agendas. Rothbard in particular was one of the leading public expositors of libertarian ideas during the late twentieth century, and he was able to engage the public while also making important contributions to the disciplines of economics and history.
Writing is a road fraught with peril, particularly for perfectionists, but it is a road worth traveling. It has never been easier to contribute to The Conversation. With dedicated effort, you can help elevate the level of discourse and make a real difference.
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One thing is for sure, if you do not write you cannot develop a writing style.
So what do you do? Write without a style until it begins to form and then write some more to see it develop and to nurture it.
Thank you for reminding me of something I know in my head but not in my heart yet.
I think it is all too easy to lurk amid the blogs and smugly nod to myself, thinking “that fellow is spot on” or “that fool doesn’t remember his own initial assertion”, all the while feeling quite literate and clever.
I don’t know who to attribute the idea to, but I have had a notion for a while that full literacy requires contribution… in this case, as you say, to the Conversation.
Thanks again for the encouragement and your contributions.
On academic writing vs popular discourse: I find a lot of the so-called “scholarly” works published in mainstream academic media odorosly statist. I am also of the opinion that being “distinguished” in the Ivy League institutions and their likes do not necessarily imply (or even require) intellectual brilliance on the part of the eminent dons. (Those who disagree can go check out Stanislav Andreski’s “Social Sciences As Sorcery”.)
We are indeed fortunate to have the Mises Institute provide a popular platform for the rest of us thinking (and concerned) common men.
In addition to writing a lot, a former writing professor advised me to read a lot of good writing and try to immitate it. (That’s what English classes are supposed to be about, but they’ve chosen to promote socialism instead.) Also, you can get a good jump start by reading the very thin and well-written “Elements of Style” by Strunk and White.
I very much appreciate it when someone takes the time to compose postings that are well-written and informative. Even when the particulars are over my head (which is no one’s problem but my own), I find that I am frequently able to take away something useful, simply because the writer took the time to make his/her point very clear.
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